THE EXHIBITION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 May 1940, Page 4

THE EXHIBITION

CLOSED ON SATURDAY PICTURESQUE CEREMONY. A RECORD ATTENDANCE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. At midnight on Saturday the Centennial Exhibition, acclaimed one of the greatest and most spectacular shows ever held in New Zealand, ended. In the afternoon, beneath grey, windy, weeping skies, the GovernorGeneral. Lord Galway, formally declared it closed from the same spot where the had opened it six months before. The Prime Minister. Mr Fraser, the president of the Exhibition. Mr Sullivan. Minister of Industries and Commerce, the chairman of directors, Mr Hislop, mayor of Wellington, and a representative of the native race, Mr Tirikatene, Maori Member for Parliament. paid tribute to the Exhibition's success. Where Archbishop Averill, then Primate of New Zealand, had called down a blessing on the enterprise at its inception, his successor, Archbishop West-Watson, gave thanks for its achievement. Forty thousand people saw the ceremony, 78.282 visited the Exhibition on closing day—the record attendance. In all, 2,640,700 patrons attended the .Exhibition.

The closing ceremony was picturesque and marked by the same distinction and formality that graced the opening ceremony. It was held al fresco, as the indoor facilities would have prevented so vast a crowd from watching proceedings, and the weather, though threatening, was not so bad as to mar the pageantry seriously. As the termination of the main Centennial celebration, the occasion was marked by a note of reverence and solemnity appropriate to so historic an event.